F 44 
S2A7 



MIDSUMMER IN 
WHITTIER'S COUNTRY 



ETHEL ARMES 




MIDSUMMER IN 
^A^HITTIER'S COUNTRY 



MIDSUMMER IN 
WHTTTTRP'5^ rnTTT\rnrT?v 

A LITTLE STUDY OF 
SANDWICH CENTER 

BY 

ETHEL ARMES 

Author of 

The Story of Coal and Iron 

in (Alabama 




WITH THE AUTHOR S 
OWN SKETCHES 



PRINTED AT 

THK UNIVERSITY PRESS OF 

SEWANEE TENNESSEE 

M DCC C CX 






Copyright, 1910 
By Ethel Armes 

^11 rights reitrvtd 



©CI.A259564 



TO 

MY COMRADES OF THE HILLS 

ALICE WIGGIN 

AND 

H. P. J. 



*** * * * ^t**^t-X- * % * *** 

** * ¥r ^ * * ^e.* 

* * « 



CONTENTS 



I. From the Little Path on the Apple Hill. 

II. In the Red Sunset , Caravans of the Old 
Days Pass. 

III. The Little People of the ViUage. 

IV. '*/ Lean my Heart Against the Day.^' 
V. A Diary of the Harvest Month. 

VI. Indian Legends Float in the Breezes. 

1 . Ossipee. 

2. Asquam. 

3 . Chocorua. 



^ iji ^ ^ :jc 



' // is as if the pine trees called me 
From ceiled room and silent books ^ 

To see the dance of woodland shadows^ 
And hear the song of April brooks / " 



* * » 



FOREWORD 




^HIS little study of Sandwich 
Center, tells quite simply the 
brief and almost uneventful 
annals of the town from its 
waking in the reign of George 
III, throughout its term of 
aftive service in behalf of the 
Colonies, to its sleeping time to-day. It also 
gives quick glimpses of a few of the little 
people and places of delight in and around 
the village, and relates the Indian legends 
and traditions told round and about there: 
the myths of Ossipee, of Lake Asquam and 
Mount Chocorua. 

Lines of V/hittier's verse run throughout 
the pages, for they are as much a part of the 
New Hampshire country as the White Hills 
themselves, and sweet and full of tenderness. 
John Greenleaf Whittier saw, indeed, vision 



12 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 

of the Spirit of Poetry standing with white 
and delicate hands at the gateway of the 
mountains, and heard speech of the ancient 
Indian world. 

Inasmuch as it was given to him — so kind 
and gentle of heart — to impart to succeeding 
generations this voice that he heard, so he 
has done. If he might not be Keats for the 
praying, at least he has drunk of fountains of 
his own country, and it is becoming more 
and more clear to those intimate with the 
White Mountain land, that Whittier has 
spoken true. ** I lean my heart against the 
day !" he sings, and, in verse all too little 
read, breath of which is given in these 
pages, he tells of those things daily about 
him and much loved by him. Among 
the Hillsy Telli?ig the Bees, The Fa?iishers, 
Voyage of the Jettie, Bridal of Pennacook, 
The Common ^estiony Mountain Pic- 
tures, Mogg Megoney The Lakesidey The 
Hill-Top y Funeral Tree of the Sokokis, — 
all these belong as much, indeed, as does 
Snowbound, to New England life and letters. 

The tiny sketches given here were done 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 



13 



out under the open sky on the hill-tops, in 
apple orchards by winding roads and in long 
grasses of the fields, so that in those places 
where the student's touch has failed, artist 
charm may be dreamed into them by whoso- 
ever knows these sweet mountain meadows 
that were the Quaker poet's golden fields; 
and likewise, it is prayed, into the book. 



Ethel Armes. 



Birmingham, Alabama. 




*** •)(■** **4t** *** *** 

** * *** * ** 

* * * 

I. 

FROM THE LITTLE PATH ON 
THE APPLE HILL 

" / would I were a painter for the 
sake of a sweet pictured 

OT far up along the road to 
Ossipee, just a quarter of a 
mile beyond the village, there 
is a little hill where rocks and 
apples grow. A stone wall, 
put up in the time of George 
III, shuts out a mischievous 
tangle of blackberry briars, and helps support 
the heavily burdened arms of one of the 
oldest of the trees, some of whose rosy 
apples hang right over a tiny gate going into 
the hill. A few other apples have tumbled 
down among tall grasses, which flirt in the 
wind with dashing groups of black-eyed 




1 6 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 

daisies — there, in the very face of the little 
path — and such a tattle-tale of a path! Off 
it runs to each one of the ancient apple trees, 
winks naughtily in the shadows, then hides 
in the spears of the redtop grass, away from 
the listening leaves. Pretty soon, shaking 
itself free from the field flowers and the long 
reaches of the circling trees, it climbs up the 
steep side of the hill, shudders by some big 
savage rocks that stretch out like an ogre's 
arms to grab it, and then — suddenly — 
before it is aware, is way up high on the 
tiptop of the little hill, all by itself, looking 
out upon the whole wide world alone! 
****** 

Through Sandwich Notch the west-wind sang 

Good morrow to the cotterj 
And once again Chocorua's horn 

Of shadow pierced the water. 

Above his broad lake Ossipee, 

Once more the sunshine wearing, 
Stooped, tracing on that silver shield 

His grim armorial bearing. 

— From Among the Hilli. 

From this little path on the Apple Hill, the 
small white houses of the village appear 
like snow flakes. Some of them reach out 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 1/ 

in long, glistening lines, — they are white 
apron strings trying to hold back the runa- 
way roads, for the little village is the mother- 
place of an hundred highland roads, those 
truant chieftains of the New Hampshire 
Hills. Miles and miles through the purple 
mountains, by the white lake shores, they 
wind, — under gleaming birch belts, by 
dusky maple groves, along deep intervales 
where the elms and willows droop, and 
where sing the sirens of the pines. Some- 
times they stop for breath in the lowlands 
where the sun burns hot, and, out of sight 
of their mother's eyes, they make golden 
love to the flowers there. Graceful forms of 
ferns lean over them; fragrant elder bushes 
hurry forth their rare white lacework; fading 
tones of the flowers of milkweed and iron- 
rust cast their glances as falling eye-lashes; 
pale celandine trails her bridal veil before 
them — daisies, buttercups, rich golden-rod — 
all the maiden flowers of midsummer time, 
tiptoe close to the enchanters — with no mod- 
esty whatever! But on go the flying chief- 
tains, ferns and flowers clinging to their kilts ! 
They round stone walls and fences made of 
roots of giant old pines, hurry by deserted 



l8 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 

farms and abandoned mills, up and down, 
over streams, by long lanes and bridle paths; 
on and on, rising and falling, past cornfields 
and orchards in the sky, until, like the little 
path on the road to Ossipee, they climb 
right up into the clouds, and are lost forever- 



more 



The only sound from the village is a 
tinkle of cow^-bells in the rock pasture near 
the school house; for even in midsummer, 
with all the strangers here. Sandwich Center 
is quiet as a snow^-fall. Tall spires of the 
little white churches, gray shingled roofs, 
red brick chimneys and green blinds of the 
snowy houses, their snug barns and wood 
shelters, wells, orchards, and herb gardens 
framed by the stone walls, curve in and out 
of the trees in a play of fresh, bright color. 

There is the house, with the gate red-barred, 

And the poplars tallj 
And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard, 

And the white horns tossing above the wall. 

There are the beehives ranged in the sun; 

And down by the brink 
Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed o'errun, 

Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink. 

— From Telling the Bees. 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER I 9 

The roads are silent as forest trails. 
Across from the postoffice is Dorr's hotel 
with its wide sheltered porches. Down the 
road a piece is Maybelle's house and the 
little white home of the twins, Ruth and 
Dorris, the minister's children. Marston's 
and Dr. White's are further on, and then 
beyond four willow trees is the house where 
Mildred lives. The new school is but a 
stone's throw off. The old school was 
yonder down by Little Pond, there where 
Master Ladd, the lame teacher, taught for 
forty years. Mildred's father and her uncle 
used to draw him to school every day in a 
sled, and sometimes the other pupils helped. 
Near the store on Main street is Maybelle's 
favorite haunt, the shop of the harness-maker 
and clock-mender. At the point of the road 
near the Spokesfield Pines is the Burleigh 
House, the old Sandwich Inn, and farther 
up. Diamond Ledge House and Miss Fos- 
ter's, going by Perry's studio on the way. 

In the other direftion towards Four Cor- 
ners, the old blacksmith shop and the saw- 
mill are passed on the right, then the marsh, 
and Went worth's Pines and the lonely cabin 
of the strange old man of Sandwich, on the 



20 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 

left, while at the very top of the hill are the 
Wentworth manor house and Adam's place 
where a massive stone wall extends for miles 
like some old Roman fortification. 

All through this region of North country 
the call of the Indian is mingled with the 
voice of England's reign. Side by side on 
the guiding stones, with the musical Indian 
names, run the quaint letters of Tam- 
worth Town, North Conway, Meredith, 
Sandwich, South Chatham and Moultonboro. 

The valley where Sandwich Center sleeps 
is encircled by the hills as by a vast jeweled 
coronet of ever-changing colors, purple and 
rose and red and gold — Israel, Black Moun- 
tain, Sandwich Dome, Red Hill, Ossipee, 
White -Face, Paugus, Passaconaway, Wonna- 
lancet, and, stirring in the distance, the 
horn of Mount Chocorua. Mightier ranges 
tower to the north, but none is more strange 
or beautiful than the mystic Sandwich range, 
guardian of Asquam and Winnepesaukee — 
Smile of the Great Spirit — of Bearcamp 
water and Lake Chocorua. Here was the 
beloved ground of Whittier — here, where 
Indian legends float in the breezes. And 
when the little mists rise over the mountains. 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 21 

all the people say, **Look! the ghosts of the 
Indians are abroad this morning on Ossipee!" 
or **See, — they are smoking the pipe of 
peace on Israel!" 

Sweetest of all childlike dreams 

In the simple Indian lore, 
Still to me the legend seems 

Of the shapes who flit before. 

Flitting, passing, seen and gone. 
Never reached nor found at rest, 

Baffling search, but beckoning on 
To the Sunset of the Blest. 

From the clefts of mountain rocks, 
Through the dark of lowland firs, 

Flash the eyes and flow the locks 
Of the mystic Vanishers! 

And the fisher in his skiff, 
And the hunter on the moss, 

Hear their call from cape and cliflF, 
See their hands the birch-leaves toss. 

Wistful, longing, through the green 
Twilight of the clustered pines. 

In their faces rarely seen 

Beauty more than mortal shines. 

Fringed with gold their mantles flow 
On the slopes of westering knolls; 

In the wind they whisper low 
Of the Sunset Land of Souls. 

— From The Vanishers. 



* 


* 


* 


* * 


* 


* 


•X- * 


•X- 


* 


•X- 


* ^ * 


* 


■X- 


* -x- 


* 


* 


^ 


* 


•X- 


* * 


-x- 


■X- 


* * 


^ 


^r 


* 


* * * 


■X- 


•x- 


* * 


* 


* 


* 


* 


-X- 


^ 


^ 


■3t 


* 


* 


•K- 


* 


* * 


* 


•X- 


■X- 


•X- 


■X- 


* 


* 






* 






* 


■x- 


* 




■};■ 






•X- 


* 


* 
















* 














* 



II. 



IN THE RED SUNSET, CARAVANS 
OF THE OLD DAYS PASS 

HE Center's days of business 
and bustle have long since 
gone. It basks in the sun now, 
and is content to try no more 
climbing of mountains. Some- 
times it dreams. In the red 
sunset, caravans of the old days 
pass. Down through Sandwich Notch come 
the endless line of red sleds, drawn by oxen 
and burdened with lumber for the building of 
the colonial settlements, or laden with pines 
for the royal navy. In those years, the 
New Hampshire white pines were stalwart 
trees standing high two hundred and fifty feet 
or more, and there grew not one in all that 
Sandwich region that was not destined to 
mast the royal navy, and branded with the 




24 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 

broad arrow by order of the kiiig. For a 
settler to cut one down was, under British 
law, a felony and punishable by a fine of one 
hundred pounds. 

In that time the only roads through the 
valley were these old lumber trails and the 
trails of the Indian, the moose, the bear and 
deer. Prospeftors surveyed Sandwich valley 
nearly two centuries ago and built the first 
cabins of the village on the wooded banks of 
Little Pond, near Lower Corner. The town 
was granted by Colonial Governor Went- 
worth in 1763. Two years later, according 
to the old Sandwich records, Orlando Weed 
was granted, by vote of the proprietors at 
Exeter, seven hundred acres, seventy pounds 
of lawful money and seven cows, on con- 
dition that he would settle seven families in 
Sandwich, and build seven substantial dwel- 
ling houses, and clear forty acres of land 
within three years. 

The Wentworths ere6led their stately 
home with columned portico and solid walls, 
the old capitol of Sandwich — still standing on 
Wentworth Hill: 

Still green about its ample porch 
The English ivy twines, 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 25 

Trained back to show in English oak 
The herald's carven signs. 

A number of other families, celebrated in 
early New England history, settled in the 
growing township; among them, the French, 
Sherman and White families, the last allied to 
the house of Oliver Cromwell. Peregrine 
White, the father of Dr. White who settled in 
Sandwich in that early period, was the first 
child born in New England. 

Many of the survivors of the French and 
Indian war, men of the 4th New Hampshire 
regiment, migrated to the new township. 
With Spartan law and Spartan courage the 
daring little maiden town of the wild hills 
was builded to a youth of aftivity and 
strength. During the Revolution she sent 
forth her sons to battle, gave them their 
shields — ** return thou with them or upon 
them" — and they returned with them. In 
the records of the battle of Bunker Hill a 
Sandwich regiment is honorably mentioned. 
Meanwhile a marriage with a Quaker hus- 
band brought forth new elements of thrift 
and industry. Iron foundries, brick kilns, 
sawmills and gristmills were established, and 
shoes and clothing manufaftured for all the 



2 6 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 

country round. The Sandwich cattle, 
Denmark breed, became noted in growing 
New England, and there were no better 
farms in all the thirteen states combined. 
Thus the golden age of the village came, 
lasted for fifty years — and went. 

With the outbreak of the civil war, again 
the martial clamor, the giving of the shields, 
and the Spartan admonition. This time the 
young men came back upon their shields, and 
the mother village bowed, never to look up 
again. Little by Uttle an alien element crept 
in and took possession of the farms whose 
younger masters had either been killed or had 
abandoned them for the West. At the 
present time not more than five families, de- 
scendants of the colonial settlers, remain in 
Sandwich. 

The village is awake to things only during 
the summer months, and here gather from 
all the world the dreaming of lovers of the 
White Hills. 

A shallow stream, from fountains 
Deep in the Sandwich mountains, 

Ran lakeward Bearcamp River; 
And between its Hood-torn shores, 
Sped by sail or urged by oars 

No keel had vexed it ever. 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 2/ 

Alone the dead trees yielding 
To the dull axe Time is wielding, 

The shy mink and the otter, 
And golden leaves and red. 
By countless autumns shed, 

Had floated down its water. 

From the gray rocks of Cape Ann, 
Came a skilled seafaring man, 

With his dory, to the right place; 
Over hill and phin he brought her, 
Where the boatless Bearcamp water 

Comes winding down from White-Face. 
****** 
On, where the stre;'.ni floM's quiet 
As the meadows' margins by it, 

Or widens out to borrow a 
New life from that wild water. 
The mountain giant's daughter, 

The pine-besung Cliocorua. 

Or, mid the tangling cumber 
And pack of mountain lumber 

That spring floods downward force, 
Over sunken snag, and bar 
Where the grating shallows are, 

The good boat held her course, 
****** 

So, to where the still lake glasses 
The misty mountain masses 

Rising dim and distant northward, 
And, with faint-drawn shadow pictures, 
Low shores and dead pine speftres, 

Blends the skyward and the earthward. 



28 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 

On she glided, overladen, 
With merry man and maiden 

Sending back their song and laughter, — 
While, perchance, a phantom crew. 
In a ghostly birch canoe. 

Paddled dumb and swiftly after! 

And the bear on Ossipee 
Climbed the topmost crag to see 

The strange thing drifting underj 
And, through the haze of August, 
Passaconaway and Paugus 

Looked down in sleepy wonder. 

All the pines that o'er her hung 
In mimic sea-tones sung 

The song familiar to her; 
And the maples leaned to screen her. 
And the meadow-grass seemed greener, 

And the breeze more soft to woo her, 
****** 
Of these hills the little vessel 
Henceforth is part and parcel; 

And on Bearcamp shall her log 
Be kept, as if by George's 
Or Grand Menan, the surges 

Tossed her skipper through the fog. 

And I, who, half in sadness 
Recall the morning gladness 

Of life, at evening time. 
By chance, onlooking idly, 
Apart from all so widely. 

Have set her voyage to rhyme. 

— From Voyage of the Jcitie. 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 29 

NoTB. — The picturesquely situated Wayside Inn at 
West Ossipee, N. H., is now in ashes; and to its former 
guests these somewhat careless rhymes may be a not 
unwelcome reminder of pleasant summers and autumns 
on the banks of the Bearcamp and Chocorua. To the 
author himself they have a special interest from the 
fact that they were written, or improvised, under the 
eye, and for the amusement of a beloved invalid friend 
whose last earthly sunsets faded from the mountain 
ranges of Ossipee and Sandwich. — From Poetical ff^orks 
of John Greenleaf TVhittier. Riverside Press. 1888. 



^ ^ ^ 



* -Jfr * 



III. 

THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE 
VILLAGE 

"^ music as of household songs 
Was in her voice of sweettiessP 

ILDPvED loves the little apple 
hill on the road to Ossipee. 
She is not afraid to go there 
alone because there are not 
any witches there, like those 
in the old float dam. There 
are fairies instead, and all the 
things for the fairies. 

**Look! This is their brown bread all 
ready for them, — only it got burned in the 
oven," Mildred will say, taking up a black- 
eyed daisy, **and oh, — this buttercup, — 
this is their pretty little butter dish full of 
butter ! ' ' Then she will gather her apron 




32 



MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 



full of grasses and field flowers and bring 
them to one of her summer ladies under the 
apple trees. Mildred is a little field flower 
herself, with her blue eyes and her light hair 
and her slight, frail little body. She is seven 
years old, — **But I'm going to be eight, — 
my mother says it!'* she cries. Because 
her father drives the stage to Center Harbor 
she is very proud, and catches her breath 
whenever the lumbering old coach goes by 
full of the summer folk. When Maybelle is 
mad with her she turns up her nose and says 
she need not think she is so much, for a 
tinner is much better than a stage-driver. 
Maybelle' s father is the tinner and she 
is proud of that, but when Charlotte, the 
twins' big sister, breaks in with, **A minis- 
ter is better than any," the children have not 
a word to say, for Charlotte's father is the 
minister. 

Maybelle often wears boy's blue overalls 
and drives an old gray mare, hitched to a red 
hay rake, out into the fields and works like a 
farmer until sundown. She is as diff*erent 
from Mildred and Dorris as high noon from 
dawn. Her face is Hke a rosy apple. She 
is sturdily built and proud of her muscle and 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 33 

her long golden-brown hair which she wears 
in two thick braids. Sometimes she takes 
Mildred out to the fields and lets her ride 
on the old gray mare. They both talk of 
the summer ladies then. Oh! the ladies who 
come in the summer time! Some of them 
have pink ribbons and white dresses full of 
beautiful lace, and embroidery on their 
petticoats. Once, one of them named Miss 
Florence, had six gold rings — and she gave 
Mildred one of them! That lady came 
from Boston. Mildred herself was there 
once. ** That is a city," she says, ** chil- 
dren cannot play in the roads there. I have 
seen make-believe people there; — I saw them 
in the store windows. It was there I saw 
Santa Claus. He was going down a chim- 
ney in Boston. Oh, do you know, there is 
one woman says Santa Claus isn't so! She 
is Mrs. Hinson, — she says it!" 

One morning, quite early, Mildred ran out 
of her house as the summer ladies passed 
going up to the apple hill: **Oh, — did you 
see the Gipsies go by this morning? Oh — 
oh — six waggings of them! But they didn't 
get me! I ran! Oncet they got Tom 
Clark an' he bawled fer his mother so they 



34 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 

took him out an' strapped him to a tree an' 
Indianed him an' left him there!" (To 
Indian anyone in Sandwich is to black his 
face and hands.) 

Often at evening, sitting out on the school- 
house rocks Mildred chatters away like a little 
sparrow: **I get up in the morning at seven 
o'clock, I pick up the dishes, then I strip the 
beds an' make them, then I wash the dishes 
an' water the hens. Then I swing in the 
swinging chair with baby. In the afternoon 
I play. I go to Hester's or I play with 
Maybelle or the twins. We play mothers. 
I have six dolls an' a lounge bed an' a 
cradle. Then every night I lock the wood- 
house door. If my mamma should say to 
me, 'Mildred, you do not have to do your 
chores to-day,' — I would do them just the 
same, — they help Papa. Oh, yesterday I 
went to Meredith, — I did! That is the place 
where I was born. It is a little farm. We 
have, — oh, a lot of hay an' a big large pasture, 
an' we let other horses come in, — we do." 

Once Miss Florence said to Mildred: **I 
know such a dear little girl. She lives in a 
house near me, and I think she is the best 
of all." 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 35 

'*Oh, — I know!" cried Mildred, "that 
is me." 

The hills are dearest which our childish feet 
Have climbed the earliest; and the streams most sweet 
Are ever those at which our young lips drank 
Stooped to their waters o'er the grassy bank. 

Midst the cold dreary sea-watch, Home's heart-light 
Shines round the helmsman plunging through the 

night; 
And still, with inward eye, the traveller sees 
In close, dark, stranger streets his native trees. 

The home-sick dreamer's brow is nightly fanned 
By breezes whispering of his native land, 
And on the stranger's dim and dying eye 
The soft, sweet pictures of his childhood lie. 

— From Bridal of Pennacooi. 



"Ih thy large heart were fair guest cham- 
bers open to sunrise a7id to birds. ''"' 

Dorris looks at you, — so — her deep eyes 
clear as the waters of a mountain spring. 
She puts her tiny little white hand tenderly 
in yours, if she loves you, and walks beside 
you in the evening wherever you go, with- 
out question and without chatter, silently and 
superbly as a star. She always takes Ruth 



36 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 

by the hand also and if Marston's dog or 
George Smith's red cow comes along the 
road, Dorris will stand in front of Ruth to 
proteft her. Sometimes the little ones, — 
and they are only just five years old, — will 
come hand m hand to a fence that encloses 
summer boarders and look in by the hour. 
Once Ruth and Dorris got lost in the old 
mill pasture. That is a lonely place at all 
times, — most gray and dismal, — and to be 
lost there is terrible. They were looking for 
thoroughwort for Miss Mary Jane, and they 
got off the road little by little and under a 
fence and off in the hazel bushes before 
they knew i;:. Then they were lost. All at 
once, a big gray building, hollow as a hollow 
tree, all full of cracks and vines and spider 
webs, came up out of the ground. It was 
the haunted old grist mill, left alone even 
when their own mother was young. Stones 
were piled up in the old pasture as though it 
were a grave-yard. One tree lay dead on 
the ground. Five mullein stalks, tall as 
Ruth herself, grew on the rock mounds. A 
gray cloud had fallen over the place long 
ago and never lifted. But over the broken 
fence was a bright green bed of brake. 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 



37 



Then a bell broke the stillness and pretty 
soon it came nearer and nearer and a pair of 
terrible, long, sharp horns tossed over the 
brake. It was Smith's red cow! Dorris 
made Ruth lie down behind the stones and 
she knelt in front of her. There was no way 
to ever get out any more. **Cow do not 
come! Cow do not come!" Dorris prayed, 
holding her hands over Ruth. The bushes 
parted by the dry mill run. Dorris closed her 
eyes but she did not move. And — it was not 
the cow — it was a lady, one of Dorris' s own 
summer ladies with paints and a picture. 

**I will not let the cow hurt Ruth, my 
little Dorris," she said, **she is really a good 
cow and she does not want to hook anybody. 
She only wants to find something to eat for 
herself, — but we will go down this way 
across the branch. It is not far to your 
home." Then the lady lifted them over 
the Red Hill stream, and they were in 
Adams' wheat field right off and on the side 
of the road ! And the cow did not get them 
at all. She just kept on eating. 

********** 

" Bring us the airs of hills and forests, 
The sweet aroma of birch and pine; 



38 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 

Give us a waft of the north-wind laden 
With sweetbrier odors and breath of kine! 

*' Bring us the purple of mountain sunsets, 
Shadows of clouds that rake the hills, 
The green repose of thy Plymouth meadows, 
The gleam and ripple of Campton rills. 

" Lead us away in shadow and sunshine, 
Slaves of fancy, through all thy miles, 
The winding ways of Pemigewasset, 
And Winnipesaukee's hundred isles. 

*' Shatter in sunshine over thy ledges. 

Laugh in thy plunges from fall to fall} 

Play with thy fringes of elms, and darken 

Under the shade of the mountain wall. 

" The cradle-song of thy hillside fountains 
Here in thy glory and strength repeat; 
Give us a taste of thy upland music. 
Show us the dance of thy silver feet." 



" . . . . The sodden forest floors 
With golden lights were checkered.'' 

The way to the old float dam begins not 
far from Mildred's house, just back of Dr. 
White's cornfield. After leaving the corn- 
field and jumping a fence, there is a little 
space of quiet meadow, crescent shaped, half 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 39 

hidden by the trees and full of fair light gras- 
ses and sunlit daisies. The pines withdraw 
their dark shadows far back. The gleaming 
branches of a solitary white birch form an 
arc of light just over the entrance into the 
mysterious wood, the beginning of the long 
trail. A log fallen over the marshy place, 
just here, makes a bridge to higher ground. 
Then but a little while, and the heart of the 
pines beats fast. Their breath falls sweetly, 
and the ground underfoot is golden-brown 
and soft with spears of the pines, piled there 
deep as snow in the long winter. Only a 
few glances of the sky pierce the deep rich 
green. Far darkening hollows roll down 
from the trail oiF into the maze of aisles and 
tree columns, — blue crypts of the ancient 
cathedral. In many places, tiny mushrooms 
gleam like pearls and opals dropped by 
ghostly queens of long ago. Indian pipes, 
cold in color as old marble, lift their slender 
shafts out of the gloom, — mist arises, — the 
smoke of yesterday's seven thousand years. 
So, through the way of dreams, passes the 
trail. Then it stops. A noisome, brackish 
stream lies across it like a snake crushed by a 
broken wall of cyclopean rocks, and all be- 



40 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 

yond is bog and mire and swamp bound in 
by the everlasting pines. Out of the poison- 
ous marsh springs some strange wild flower, 
red as blood. 

" The valley holds its breath 

'No leaf of all its elms is twirled?'' 

A gray, shaggy bowlder high on the ridge 
of a hill, — one apple tree leaning near, — 
that is Sunset Rock, the nearest point to the 
village where a view of all the mighty ranges 
may be had in one grand sweep. 

One summer a solitary stranger, some 
sweet-natured Thoreau, came to Sandwich 
and pitched his tent in the shadow of this 
rock. For two weeks he camped there 
speaking to no man, given over to the silent 
watch of the great hills. 

Another summer a young girl who sang, 
often stood upon the rocks. Alone in the 
twilight there, her blue dress like a bit of the 
dawn sky, and with arms outstretched to the 
glowing hills, she would sing the love-songs 
of the masters — yearning of the ages ... in 
ssEcula sasculorum. 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 4 1 

Once more, O Mountains of the North, unveil 
Your brows, and lay your cloudy mantles by! 
And once more, ere the eyes that seek ye fail. 

Uplift against the blue walls of the sky 
Your mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weave 
Its golden net-work in your belting woods, 
Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods. 
And on your kingly brows at morn and eve 
Set crowns of fire! So shall my soul receive 
Haply the secret of your calm and strength. 
Your unforgotten beauty interfuse 
My common life, your glorious shapes and hues 
And sun-dropped splendors at my bidding come. 
Loom vast through dreams, and stretch in billowy 

length 
From the sea-level of my lowland home! 

They rise before me! Last night's thunder-gust 
Roared not in vain: for where its lightnings thrust 
Their tongues of fire, the great peaks seem so near. 
Burned clean of mist, so starkly bold and clear, 
I almost pause the wind in the pines to hear. 
The loose rock's fall, the steps of browsing deer. 
The clouds that shattered on yon slide-worn walls 

And splintered on the rocks their spears of rain 
Have set in play a thousand waterfalls. 
Making the dusk and silence of the woods 
Glad with the laughter of the chasing floods. 
And luminous with blown spray and silver gleams, 
While, in the vales below, the dry-lipped streams 

Sing to the freshened meadow-lands again. 

— From Mountain Pictures. 



«** * * ^ ***** 

* * * * * * 

* * 



******* 

* * * * * * 

* * * 

* 



IV. 

"I LEAN MY HEART AGAINST 
THE DAY" 

"/ read each misty mountain sign, 
I know the voice of wave and pine, 
And I ajn yours and ye are mineT 

JOURNAL of the days runs 
all to clouds: rich purple twi- 
light, a mystery of red, the 
sad, fading red that glows and 
burns against the mountains, 
and lasts till all the other sky 
has grown dark and full of 
stars. . . . Cloud shadows over the valley, 
rain on Sandwich Dome — white mist veiling 
it — low rain clouds breaking over it — the rain 
slanting down — and — coming — coming . . . 
A clear, valiant blue sky, billows of snow 
white clouds rolling over all the hills — 
but over Ossipee — little purple mists like 




44 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 

violets blowing. . . . Vast domes and pal- 
aces of clouds floating over the mountains 
at sunset — gold wings arising in the twilight 
— long streamers of color, — lavender, rose 
pink, old gold, edging the hills, — then again 
that rich, warm red, beating like a great full 
heart — burning into the night far behind the 
hills. . . . To-day, tenderness and sweet- 
ness in the far, far light blue — dear with baby 
clouds. . . . On Burleigh Hill, — a mighty 
black cloud brooding over the sky, — but to- 
ward the hills, light and white, the far dis- 
tance, soft with mists. . . . Savage clouds 
suddenly gathering, — rolling dark and gray — 
casting shadows of war — through them tiny 
little maiden skies trembling — white veils 
hiding their sweet blue forms — torn in streaks 
by the fierce thunder-heads leaping hard upon 
them — ravishing them with a fearful delight. 

♦'From ceiled rooms, from silent books, 
From crowded car and town, 
Dear Mother Earth, upon thy lap 
We lay our tired heads down." 

* * * * 

* * * 

* ♦ 

* 



***** * * 
******* 

* * * * * * 

* * * 
* 



********* 

********* 

***** * * 

* * * * 

* 



* * * * * 

* * * * * 

* * * * 

* * 
« 



V. 

A DIARY OF THE HARVEST 
MONTH 



'■'■I climbed a hill path strange and new 

With slow feet pausing at each turn^ — 
A sudden waft of west wijid blew 
The breath of the sweet fern T 

— [August the 1st. 

HITE-FACE to-day! We left 
in the dim, cool mist just before 
dawn. There were only four 
pale stars in the sky, and these 
we soon lost in the shadow of 
Israel. Long interminable veils 
of mist hid the other ranges 
overed the valley. * 'There's rain on 
White-Face," said our guide. But far over 
eastward bloomed a gentle flush of rose 
color — so we drove on. It was to be one 




and 



46 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 

of the sun's blue days, however. He tried 
to be glorious, — but Aurora and her maidens 
must have been weeping — so he was all up- 
set. He came out and went back several 
times, then finally he stayed with the tearful 
maidens. Thus the mist was in nowise 
lifted when we reached the wonderful inter- 
vale at the foot of the slide-scarred mountain. 
After putting up our teams in the big barn of 
a comfortable farmhouse, there, we found the 
trail, pressed through the thick growth of wet 
hazel bushes, and after shaping alpen stocks, 
we began the ascent. There were two other 
girls besides Alice and myself in the party. 
They were from Concord — disciples of 
Thoreau, — and they paused with a quiet 
pleasure before every little faintly sketched 
flower, and mountain plant along the misty 
trail. Two superb, active hours, mounting 
up through the pines, struggling under fallen 
trees, scaling big bowlders, going higher and 
higher in the fast-gathering mist, singing old 
English ballads: **Now gayly thro' the 
mountain glen, the hunter winds his horn!" 
— then all at once, shut in by the cloud — 
hurriedly gathering pine boughs for a tent 
and stripping the giant birches for ponchos 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 47 

and umbrellas — building a fire — watching the 
smoke crawl around our shivering fingers — 
then suddenly all the skies opening and a 
wild mad flood pouring down — a gallop to 
earth again — back to the clean farm kitchen, 
a warm fire and good hot cofFee. 

We had been wandering for many days 

Through the rough northern country. We had seen 

The sunset, with its bars of purple cloud, 

Like a new heaven, shine upward from the lake 

Of Winnepiseogee; and had felt 

The sunrise breezes, midst the leafy isles 

Which stoop their summer beauty to the lips 

Of the bright waters. We had checked our steedg, 

Silent with wonder, where the mountain wall 

Is piled to heaven ; and, through the narrow rift 

Of the vast rocks, against whose rugged feet 

Beats the mad torrent with perpetual roar, 

Where noonday is as twilight, and the wind 

Comes burdened with the everlasting moan 

Of forests and of far-off waterfalls. 

We had looked upward where the summer sky, 

Tasselled with clouds light-woven by the sun, 

Sprung its blue arch above the abutting crags 

O'er-roofing the vast portal of the land 

Beyond the wall of mountains. We had passed 

The high source of the Saco; and bewildered 

In the dwarf spruce-belts of the Crystal Hills 

Had heard above us, like a voice in the cloud 

The horn of Fabyan sounding; and atop 

Of old Agioochook had seen the mountains 



48 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER's COUNTRY 

Piled to the northward, shagged with wood, and thick 
As meadow mole-hills, — the far sea of Casco, 
A white gleam on the horizon of the east; 
Fair lakes, embosomed in the woods and hills; 
Moosehillock's mountain range, and Kearsarge 
Lifting his Titan forehead to the sun ! 

And we had rested underneath the oaks 

Shadowing the bank, whose grassy spires are shaken 

By the perpetual beating of the falls 

Of the wild Ammonoosuc. We had tracked 

The winding Pemigewasset, overhung 

By beechen shadows, whitening down its rocks, 

Or lazily gliding through its intervals, 

From waving rye-fields sending up the gleam 

Of sunlit waters. We had seen the moon 

Rising behind Umbagog's eastern pines. 

Like a great Indian camp-fire; and its beams 

At midnight spanning with a bridge of silver 

The Merrimac by Uncanoonuc's falls, 

— From Tht Bridul of Pennactth. 



'■'■ Through each branch-enwoven skylight 

speaks He in the breeze^ 
As of old beneath the twilight 
Of lost Eden's trees ! " 

— [August the 6th. 

Last night I ran ofF secretly to the Spokes- 
field Pines. I tiptoed away from the house 
while everyone was sound asleep, just as the 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 



49 



late moon was coming up over the hills. I 
hurried along the white road by the silent 
houses. Marstan's dog barked furiously at 
me, but no one woke up and I came safely 
to the last house of the village. This was 
beyond the old Burleigh Inn, and a light was 
in one of the front rooms. Old Susan Wil- 
ley was still sewing carpet rags ! My heart 
trembled as I left the light. I felt as though 
I were about to enter into some terrible but 
sweet adventure, — some divine rendezvous! 
After vaulting the fence just beyond the old 
pump I struck the trail, and in another mo- 
ment was shrouded in the darkness of the 
pines. Shadows have such a fearful delight. 
I lay in them until I was too frightened to 
get up. There was a strange shape in front 
of me that seemed to move. After a long 
while — it seemed hours — I thrust out my 
hands, — and touched — a blackberry briar 
swaying in the wind over an old stump. I 
drew closer and I saw it was the verv stump 
whose rings we had counted last Wednesday. 
The tree had but recently fallen. Dr. 
Wiggin used a magnifying glass to get the 
records and we found that it was five hundred 
years old. In certain parts of the Spokesfield 



50 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 

woods the pines are grouped in curiously har- 
monious lines. As things became more dis- 
tinft I could follow this fine grouping and 
the fantastic play of the light. 



Hark! — is that the angry howl 

Of the wolf, the hills among? — 
Or the hooting of the owl, 

On his leafy cradle swung? — 
Quickly glancing, to and fro, 
Listening to each sound they go 
Round the columns of the pine, 

Indistindl, in shadow, seeming 
Like some old and pillared shrine; 
With the soft and white moonshine, 
Round the foliage-tracery shed 
Of each column's branching head. 
For its lamps of worship gleaming! 
And the sounds awakened there, 

In the pine-leaves fine and small, 

Soft and sweetly musical. 
By the fingers of the air, 
For the anthem's dying fall 
Lingering round some temple's wall! 
Niche and cornice round and round 
Wailing like the ghost of sound! 

— From Mogg Megone, 

I Stretched myself out full length on the 
pine needles and breathed in the cool fresh- 
ness and looked up long through the pine 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 5 I 

boughs. I wished for more stars. I thought 
of a girl I had met once five years before, 
from far up in Duluth, one who had slept in 
the pines along the great lake shore, who had 
spoken to me of the large stars before dawn, 
of the song of the pines and the breath 
of the pines. I saw her walking in the 
shadows with her pale face upturned, and I 
knew now, at last, how she had felt in the 
pines. 

I counted the sounds I heard. A cock 
crew way off somewhere. A dog barked, 
an owl hooted and a sleepless squirrel dropped 
an acorn at my feet. It made such a loud 
noise I jumped. Then 1 lay quiet again. I 
marked the swift changes of the moonlight 
on the black trunks of the pines and in their 
lofty boughs, the fast traveling and checkered 
glow on the soft, clean ground and the long 
mellow sweeps of light. 

Then I wrapped my coat tightly about mc 
and slept long in the song of the pines. 
* * * 

"^// through the long bright days of June 
Its leaves grew green and fair 
And waved in hot midsummer noon 
Its soft and yellow hairy 



52 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 

— [August the loth. 

On Rock Maple Ridge to-day 

"First, a lake, tinted with sunset; next the 

waving lines of far receding hills," 

the might and majesty of Israel, — then all at 
once a glory of golden wheat on the very 
crest of the steep hill, waving like hair in the 
wind, shining like hair in the sun — a wonder 

past the telling One dwarf-Uke old 

man, wrinkled and long bearded, bent double 
over his scythe, — Hagen stealing the gold 
from the Rhine maidens. 



^''Somewhere it laughed and sang; somewhere 
Whirled in ?nad dance its misty hair^ 
But who had raised its veil, or seen 
The rainbow skirts of that Undine f " 

— [August the 15th, 

To-day we drove to Beedis' Falls, — the 
wonder road through Sandwich Notch: 

"The river hemmed with leaning trees 
Wound through its meadows green; 
A long blue line of mountains showed 
The open pines between. 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 53 

"One sharp, tall peak above them all 
Clear into sunlight sprang, 
I saw the river of my dreams, 
The mountains that I sang." 

At the place where we stopped first the 
water flowed quietly over a great wide sweep 
of solid rock. Wading was slippery but full 
of delight. I dropped all my petticoats and 
letting fly my hair I leaped, feeling like a 
deer, down over to the smaller rocks where 
the .water began to tumble and I could be 
drenched in its tossing spray. Flashes of 
the sunlight warmed my wet legs and arms, 
and I danced every wild step I knew, — 
feeling so free and glorious: 

"The leaves through which the glad winds blew 
Shared the wild dance the waters knew; 
And where the shadows deepest fell, 
The wood-thrush rang his silver bell, 

"Fringing the stream at every turn. 
Swung low the waving fronds of fern: 
From stony clefts and mossy sod, 
Pale asters sprang, and golden-rod. 

"The turquoise lakes, the glimpse of pond 
And river track, and, vast, beyond 
Broad meadows belted round with pines 
The grand uplift of mountain lines!" 



54 



MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 

Against the wooded hills it stands, 

Ghosts of a dead home, staring through 

Its broken lights on wasted lands 
Where old-time harvests grew. 

Unploughed, unsown, by scythe unshorn, 
The poor, forsaken farm-fields lie, 

Once rich and rife with golden corn 
And pale green breadths of rye. 

Of healthful herb and flower bereft. 
The garden plot no housewife keepsj 

Through weeds and tangle only left, 
The snake, its tenant, creeps. 

A lilac spray, still blossom-clad, 

Sways slow before the empty roomsj 

Beside the roofless porch a sad 
Pathetic red rose blooms. 

His track, in mould and dust of drouth, 
On floor and hearth the squirrel leaves, 

And in the fireless chimney's mouth 
His web the spider weaves. 

The leaning barn, about to fall, 

Resounds no more on husking eves: 

No cattle low in yard or stall, 
No thresher beats his sheaves. 

So sad, so drear! It seems almost 

Some haunting Presence makes its signj 

That down yon shadowy lane some ghost 
Might drive his spectral kine! 

From The Ucmtsttad. 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 55 

— [August the 20th. 

Yesterday Alice and I drove along by 
Israel by way of the old stage road. We 
passed a dingy farm house where the old 
people were left alone. A quaintly fashioned 
letter box had been put up years before in 
front of their house, — when their only son 
went west. Every day when the stage 
passed they watched for a letter. Finally 
two robins built a nest in the little box. 
Every spring they came back; no letter has 

ever disturbed them We came to 

another farm house deserted and forlorn, a 
haunted place, far in the fields. Israel has 
many such. It broods over them gloomily, 
but the highland roads laugh in its grave face 
and run carelessly by the abandoned homes 
of its lost children. It was warm yesterday; 
a drowsy sense even in those gay roads: — 
O, the charm of their sleep on the breasts of 
the maiden flowers ! 

"Along the roadside, like the flowers of gold 
That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought, 
Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod. 
And the red pennons of the cardinal flowers 
Hang motionless upon their upright staves. 
The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind, 



56 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 

Wing-weary with its long flight from the south, 
Unfelt; yet, closely scanned yon maple leaf 
With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams, 
Confesses it. The locust by the wall 
Stabs the noon silence with his sharp alarm. 
A single hay-cart down the dusty road 
Creaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep on the 
load's top. 



"Against the neigbhoring hill, 
Huddled along the stone wall's shady side. 
The sheep snow white, as if a snowdrift. 
Defied the dog-star. Through the open door 
A drowsy smell of flowers, — gay heliotrope. 
And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette — 
Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends 
To the pervading symphony of peace." 

So we drove and we drove, Alice and I. 
We followed the roads as the flowers did, 
we embraced them, we adored them, — and 
we did not blame a single little aster! It 
was dark when we turned homeward, — 
**How those clouds low down turn to moun- 
tains," said Alice, **and the pastures stretch 
ofF smooth into space. Look, — the mist 
sweeping up from the valley over Israel. . .** 
Then we watched the stars come out. With 
half-closed eyes we watched the mystic fair- 
ness of the hills — those brides of the night- 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER $"/ 

clouds and the stars — adorning themselves for 
their sweet bridegrooms. 

"How far and strange the mountains seem, 
Dim-looking through the pale, still light} 
The vague, vast grouping of a dream, 
They stretch into the solemn night." 



— [August the 30th. 

To-day, — to-dav, — all day under the 
apple trees! A big white cloud luminous 
with light arising over the sloping gray roof — 
all the sky a clear and serene blue — apples 
shining on the trees, — mellow, — full of 
sweet fruit-smell, — the sad leaves closing 
around them tenderly — holding them fast, — 
knowing their loss is coming 

So twilight deepened round us. Still and black 
The great woods climbed the mountain at our back; 
And on their skirts, where yet the lingering day 
On the shorn greenness of the clearing lay, 

The brown old farm-house like a bird's-nest hung. 
With home-life sounds the desert air was stirred: 
The bleat of sheep along the hill we heard. 
The bucket plashing in the cool, sweet well, 
The pasture-bars that clattered as they fell; 
Dogs barked, fowls fluttered, cattle lowed; the gate 
Of the barn-yard creaked beneath the merry weight 



55 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 

Of sun-brown children, listening, while they swung, 

The welcome sound of supper-call to hear; 
And down the shadowy lane, in tinklings clear, 
The pastoral curfew of the cow-bell rung. 
Thus soothed and pleased, our backward path we took, 
Praising the farmer's home. He only spake, 
Looking into the sunset o'er the lake, 

Like one to whom the far-oif is most near: 
"Yes, most folks think it has a pleasant look; 
I love it for my good old mother's sake, 
Who lived and died here in the peace of God!" 

— From Mountain Pictures. 








"%^ 



********************* 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *** 
** * * * * * * * 

* * * 



VI. 

INDIAN LEGENDS FLOAT IN 
THE BREEZES 

I. OSSIPEE 

"Let Indian ghosts^ if such there be, 
Who ply unseen their shadowy lines j 
Call back the ancient na?ne to thee 
As with the voice of pines !'''' 

Although Israel is mighty 
and much beloved, Ossipee 
sings to the heart with the 
woman's love-song. Its fair 
brow, gold-crowned, the rising 
sunlit dome, like the one burn- 
ing breast of an Amazon girl, — 
the grace of its long, firm Imes, — the sweet- 
ness of the little clouds, — its winged chil- 
dren — playing over it, — then the transparent 
blushing wonder of it when the twilight 
falls 




6o MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 

Long ago, so the stories say, an ocean of 
pines swept the vast hill from base to dome; 
the very name in the Indian tongue meant 
Mountain of the Pines, and it was the 
Indian symbol of the ideal. 

The Ossipee Falls are the Falls of the 
Song of the Pines. Some say that late in 
November a plaintive note is heard here. 
That is the last cry of an Indian brave of the 
Pequaket tribe. He took up arms against 
John Chamberlain, the slayer of Paugus, 
the great chief, and he pursued him over the 
valleys from Winnepesaukee to Ossipee Falls. 
The pale-face leaped the falls, — the very 
spot is pointed out to-day, — but the Indian 
fell in his haste, and perished in the foaming 
waters, — and his ghost has haunted the place 
ever since. . . . white sprays of the restless 
waters, mist of dreams. 



The shadows round the inland sea 

Are deepening into night; 
Slow up the slopes of Ossipee 

They chase the lessening light. 
Tired of the long day's blinding heat, 

I rest my languid eye, 
Lake of the Hills! where, cool and sweet 

Thy sunset waters lie! 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 6 1 

Along the sky, in wavy lines, 

O'er isle and reach and bay, 
Green-belted with eternal pines, 

The mountains stretch away. 
Below, the maple masses sleep 

Where shore with water blends, 
While midway on the tranquil deep 

The evening light descends. 

So seemed it when yon hill's red crown, 

Of old, the Indian trod. 
And, through the sunset air, looked down 

Upon the Smile of God. . . . 

— From Tht Laktsidt. 

* * ♦ 



II. ASQUAM 

'■^Before ?ne, stretched for glistening miles^ 
Lay mountain-girdled Squam; 
Like green-winged birds, the leafy isles 
Upon its bosom swam^ 

And, glimmering through the sun-haze warm, 

Far as the eye could roam. 
Dark billows of an earthquake storm 

Beflecked with clouds like foam, 
Their vales in misty shadow deep. 

Their rugged peaks in shine, 
I saw the mountain ranges sweep 

The horizon's northern line. 



62 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 

There towered Chocorua's peak; and west, 

Moosehillock's woods were seen, 
With many a nameless slide-scarred crest 

And pine-dark gorge between. 
Beyond them, like a sun-rimmed cloud, 

The great Notch mountains shone, 
Watched over by the solemn-browed 

And awful face of stone ! 

—From I'he Hill-Top. 

The little lake Asquam, meaning the beau- 
tifiil-surrounded-by-water-place, is very fair. 
Like most inland waters it is crystal clear, 
reflefting minutely every change and tinge of 
color of the clouds and trees and sky. It is 
only two miles beyond Sandwich on the 
road under the red oaks and maples of Red 
Hill to Centre Harbor. It is not big, like 
Winnepesaukee, but it is even more charming. 
The graceful curves of its shore lines, the 
miniature islands rocking on its waters, and 
the mists arising at dawn and evening take 
possession of every sense. 

The Indian myth that lies sleeping on the 
waters' breast wakes only in a fierce thunder 
storm at night, when the curse of old 
Wamego flashes in the lightning; the moaning 
of Suneta haunts the valley for miles around, 
and the love song of Anonis yearns far in 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 63 

the lonely hills. Long ago, the legend says, 
an old Indian chief, the ugly Wamego, 
whose squaw had died, lived on the shores 
of 'Squam. Suneta, the daughter of a 
neighboring chief, was sold to him by her 
father, although she was pledged to Anonis, 
a brave of her own tribe. The marriage 
feast with the ugly chief was celebrated. 
Before many moons had passed, however, 
when one night the old Wamego lay sleeping 
heavily, Suneta heard her lover's voice: 

** Come! The night is dark and stormy, 
My canoe is on the Jake. 
My beloved! I cannot live without you. 
You are mine! 

Death awaits me tonight if I bear you not 
away in mine arms! " 

Suneta sprang to him and they fled through 
the shadows. Wamega awoke, followed 
them and caught them. With his tomahawk 
he killed Anonis, and lifting up his voice over 
the fainting Suneta, cried, **May fire blast 
her! Let the Manitou make of her an 
example to coming time!'* A flash of 
lightning and a savage growl of thunder 
replied to his words. The body of Suneta 
was turned to stone, — circle of the sighing 



64 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER*S COUNTRY 

wind, miserere, — the ever living Francesca 
and Paoli! To-day all the people who come 
to Asquam may look upon the rock so 
strangely carven in a woman's form, sad, 
disconsolate on the far side of the lake : 
**Mat woTick kunna-monee !^^ it is said. 
And the song of the Indian women in The 
Bridal of Pennacook is remembered. 

The Dark eye has left us, 

The Spring-bird has flown; 
On the pathway of spirits 
She wanders alone. 
The song of the wood-dove has died on our shore: 
Mat ivonck kunna-monee! We hear it no more! 

O dark water Spirit! 

We cast on thy wave 

These furs which may never 

Hang over her grave; 

Bear down to the lost one the robes that she wore: 

Mat ivonck kunna-monee! We see her no more! 

Of the strange land she walks in 

No Powah has told: 
It may burn with the sunshine, 
Or freeze with the cold. 
Let us give to our lost one the robes that she wore; 
Mat ivonck kunna-monee! We see her no more! 
******** 
O mighty Sowanna! 
Thy gateways unfold, 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 65 

From thy wigwam of sunset 
Lift curtains of gold! 
Take home the poor Spirit whose journey is o'er: 
Mat ivonck kunna-monee! We see her no more! 

— From Tht Bridal of Pennactok. 



III. CHOCORUA 

^'■Part thy blue lips, Northe?'n Lake! 
Moss-grown I'ocks your silence break! 

Tell the tale thou ancient tree! 

Thou^ too, slide-worn Ossipee! 
speak and tell us how and when 
Lived and died this King of men! " 

The mountain of all mountains around 
Sandwich is Chocorua, the Prophet's Tomb. 
It is known far and wide beyond any other 
of the White Hills, save Mount Washington 
alone, and it is loved far more than any 
other. Even children may climb Chocorua, 
and its story is a tale told at the New England 
firesides in the long winter, even as the story 
of the Black Douglas stirred the Scottish 
hearts of long ago. Chocorua was a chief 
of the Ossipee tribe. He was afraid of 
nothing. He fought in many battles with 
the white men to keep the home and the 



66 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 

hunting ground of his people. But the 
settlers and the soldiers were too strong for 
him. The Ossipee tribe was driven, foot by- 
foot, over the border into Canada. Cho- 
corua and a handful of braves remained. 
They established their stronghold on a name- 
less mountain where roamed the bears and 
the deer. The colony of Massachusetts 
offered many pounds of silver for scalps of 
the Indians. Thus, for blood money, one 
by one, Chocorua's men were killed. The 
long winter came and Chocorua was left 
alone. For many months no white man 
dared go near the nameless mountain for 
very dread. But when the spring awoke and 
the white ramparts of snow fell from Cho- 
corua' s fort, every pass into the forest there 
was guarded and a hundred men assembled 
to hunt down the fierce chieftain. He 
retreated farther and farther up the mountain, 
pressed on by his enemies, until at last he 
reached the peak, that sharp tower rock, like 
a leaning battlement in the sky. His arrows 
were gone; death or capture was before him. 
With folded arms he stood silent on the 
peak. A bullet whistled by him. Then he 
lifted up his voice In a prophecy of woe to 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 6/ 

the white man's land, of sickness to the 
cattle, of death to the young men. He 
sang the cry of the abandonment of the land, 
then he plunged into the dark sea of mist 
and pines three thousand feet below. The 
mountain was named his brave name. It is 
graven there forevermore. 

A huge gray bowlder Hes to-day under a 
giant birch not far from the Half-Way 
House of Chocorua: 

And there the fallen chief is laid, 
In tasselled garb of skins arrayed, 
And girded with his wampum-braid. 

******* 

'Tis done: the roots are backward sent, 
The beechen-tree stands up unbent, 
The Indian's fitting monument! 

When of that sleeper's broken race 
Their green and pleasant dwelling-place. 
Which knew them once, retains no trace; 

O, long may sunset's light be shed 
As now upon that beech's head, 
A green memorial of the dead! 

There shall his fitting requiem be, 

In northern winds, that, cold and free, 

Howl nightly in that funeral tree. 



68 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIEr's COUNTRY 

O peeled and hunted and reviled, 
Sleep on, dark tenant of the wild! 
Great Nature owns her simple child! 

— From Funeral Tree of the Soioiis. 

**Yes, — dees be ze place where Shocoruay 
be buried," says old **Dutch" Liberty, 
keeper of the Half- Way House, **dees be ze 
place!" Liberty is a French-Canadian by 
birth but he has been in New Hampshire 
beyond folks' counting, and by Carroll 
County logic, since it be not English that he 
speaks, he must be a Dutchman. He is at 
any rate an industrious toll gatherer. He 
knows by natural instinct every foot of the 
ground Chocorua trod, and even as the 
guides of Holyrood, he too can point out 
drops of blood along the trail and can speak 
the very words of Chocorua' s curse. 

**Zen ze cattle zey die by one, by two, 
by ze hunder, — all from Shocoruay' s curse." 
But Mrs. Liberty shakes her head mildly, 
**That be, so I hear, on account of too 
much lime in the water. They gave the 
cattle soapsuds an' they was cured. But 
when I merried Liberty an' come up here 
on the mountain ter live, scarce a body would 
plant foot on Shocoruay. That be thirty 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 69 

years ago come next August, an' here we be 
still." 

Mrs. Liberty is of Quaker blood and 
Quaker gentleness. Her eyes are blue, and 
her hair a soft, waving white. Her face is 
fine and in spite of her sixty odd years, fresh 
and rosy in coloring, and her bearing stately 
and ereft. On sunny afternoons she sits for 
hours on the steps of the Half- Way House, 
knitting little presents for her friends, the 
visitors to Chocorua. She brings them 
glasses of mountain water and looks to their 
comfort in many ways. 

The Half-Way House is just a rough 
three-roomed shack made of pine boards. 
Red calico curtains are tacked across the 
windows and scarlet geraniums in old tomato 
cans bloom on the pine window sills. Moun- 
tain air and the scent of the balsam fir fill the 
bare, clean, little rooms. From the front 
door the hill descends, past the corral for the 
tourists' teams, far down into the white birch 
belt. The incline is steep from the rear of 
Half-Way House. A silver trout stream 
tumbles down the hill as though it were 
going to run straight into the back door 
of the little house, but it takes a sharp 



70 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER S COUNTRY 

turn to the right just where the Liberty trail 
begins. 

**Be you goin' ter climb Shocoruay to- 
day?" Mrs. Liberty asks. **It be blowing 
strong on the peak to-day, but there's fifteen 
gone before ye. But they ain't done fixin' 
the teams yet so you kin set awhile with me. 
Be I lonely? Wa'al yes, there aim never a 
soul comes near Shocoruay long in the 
winter, an' me an' Liberty, we jest sets here, 
an' does our chores, an' sets here. I say 
to myself *God hev set me down here on 
Shocoruay, an' here to stay;' an' I prays ter 
Him an' takes my lot. T'aint so hard 
when you come to think. We got potatoes 
yonder an' flour in the shack, an' bacon 
enough ter last, an' thar be plenty of wood 
for fire, an' t'aint so cold about here as 'tis 
in other places. It be cold enough though, 
an' never a livin' body; but along about 
Spring, though, all that's changed, an* 
friends begin ter come, an' keep a comin* 
till Oftober sets in. I'd rather be here 
than on the farm. Sometimes me an' Lib- 
erty we shets up the Half-Way House an' 
goes to the farm, but it is about the same 
wherever we goes. Liberty an' me made 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER J I 

the trail up Shocoruay, — yes, there be other 
trails, but they be full of harricanes. It 
keeps Liberty an' me workin' ter keep the 
trail in shape, an' this be the only one folks 
travel on much. The folks come from all 
parts — all over the v^^orld ter see Shocoruay. 
There be one old lady my age gone up there 
to-day — there be a good many old ladies hev 
climbed Shocoruay. You'll take notice of 
the one gone up to-day maybe. She has on 
spectacles an' wears a cape with a red plaid 
lining — I reckon you'll see her. Then 
there's some comes from Boston every sum- 
mer an' New York. Everybody knows 
about Shocoruay, though I can't say as I see 
much ter it — Shocoruay be Shocoruay." 

In all the Sandwich region so stirring with 
melodies of clouds and birds, children, 
flowers and pines, and lakes and hills, there 
is no chord more majestic, more sublime 
than this, — Chocorua! At first tenderly, as 
though to music in minor key, in piercing 
sweet — the young trail leaves the glowing 
stream beyond the Half-Way House, and 
steps into the fast vanishing zone of the 
white birches. Embraced by the pale, 
slender arms of those fairy trees, shadowed 



72 MIDSUMMER IN WHITTIER's COUNTRY 

in long arches of green leaves, it lingers 
pleasantly — and sadly — for a mile or more. 
Then it dips low down into a stony hollow, 
wet underfoot for a space, then mounts 
sharply up with sturdy strength into the 
black belt of the pines. Streams of water, 
myriads of them, spring from the mysterious 
rocks, and dance down the steep descent like 
water sprites. Like slender white threads 
they curve down under the traveler's feet 
and wind off into the deep forest — magic 
ways to Fair Rosamond. Enchanters appear 
in the shape of wonderful vistas, now far 
ahead or far back or to right or left, to lure 
the pilgrim off the trail. But Chocorua's 
summit is on ahead — the donjon tower — 
and a view of the mighty keep itself. Mount 
Washington, and all the walls and battle- 
ments and towers and turrets of the great 
castled land. Off to the south the vast 
moat — waters of Winnepesaukee — will glow; 
again, in the heart of the valley. Sandwich 
Village and all her little sister towns will be 
seen in their quiet sleep, while far off, miles 
beyond the hundred lakes, far across the 
country a long pale line will stretch — the 
coast of Maine dim in the mist of the sea. 



A LITTLE STUDY OF SANDWICH CENTER 73 

Though the promise is fair and rich, the 
hillside is a wonderful thing — and hard to 
leave. It is a dreamer, savage and poetical 
— voice of the dying Moses murmuring lovv^, 
precious things to the everlasting hills. 

The way grows steep and bare. The 
pines are dwarfs, the rocks are giants. The 
earth begins to recede; the promise is about 
to be fulfilled. The regions of the sky are 
here. With a very trumpet's blast, the wild 
wind charges down, armored in black rocks, 
with boughs of the leaning pines his lance and 
battle axe, spray of the green pine his bright 
pennon — over all, white plumage of the 
clouds — laugh of Die Walkure. 

The joust is on — the tournament of rocks 
and wind and sky. 

Laissez aller! 

A valiant step upward — a shouting in the 
very air — behold the peak, Chocorua! 

[the end] 
* >H * 



MS 



*' 



^'rR Sj^ 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



t/Otliut (^ t £ ^0 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 065 019 5 



